


Keep Calm and Invade Russia

by DestielsDestiny



Series: Keep Calm 'Verse [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Fic, Kid Tony Stark, Protective Bucky Barnes, Swearing, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 07:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4696820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/pseuds/DestielsDestiny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a gallant warrior with a waxed moustache set out to save the world. He found something instead. And no, this isn’t Agatha Christie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Calm and Invade Russia

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I own nothing. Warning for some language, mentions of alcohol abuse and child abuse.

“Once upon a time, a dashing warrior with a waxed mustache set out to save the world. He set out for the frozen snows…” 

“No, you’re telling it wrong Daddy!” Metal hydraulics hissing gently, blue eyes drifting open and sliding downwards, freshly shorn hair brushing the bottom of his chin, the Winter Soldier regards the little boy pressed securely against his front, tiny frame clinging protectively to his chest, small head tilted back against his metal to bone shoulder joint. 

“I am huh? How do you figure that buddy?” Small fists scrabble for purchase on smooth plates of recently blued metal, a stubborn miniature chin unconsciously mirroring the very subject of their debate. “Father never waxes his mustache, he says it’s undignified.” It should be an incredibly precocious thing for a four year old to be able to say, but Tony Stark has never really been a typical toddler in all the time Bucky’s known him. 

In fact, for Tony, the statement’s slightly by rote tone is rather revealing of how very tired he is. 

Its five minutes to midnight, on a completely unordinary day in October, and by all rights both of them should have been in bed hours ago. Except that they live in Stark Mansion, a place that is never even remotely ordinary on the best of days. And today was one of the very worst Bucky can recall for a long time. And his memory is doing pretty good these days. Mostly. 

Today just made it to the top of his list though, because today he received further proof that Howard Stark, apart from being a remarkable human being and remarkably bad father, is the most idiotic genius in the history of pretty much ever. 

“Daddy, when is Jarvis coming back?” Bucky carefully extracts himself from his thoughts for long enough to gather Tony slightly closer, pulling his small head down to rest securely against his flesh and bone shoulder, close enough to the middle of his chest to allow his still human heart beat to pound against the little boy’s hot ear. 

“Soon Tony, he’s coming back real soon, I promise.” He knows Tony won’t really believe it, knows the moment he says it like that, the same way he tells Tony that Steve is coming back one day. He’s not sure why he says it that way, cause Jarvis isn’t dead, but then neither is Steve Bucky firmly reminds himself. Nobody’s dead, Tony knows that and he’s more than smart enough to know the difference. 

Something hot and wet traces its way under Bucky’s t-shirt collar, traversing his right pectoral before running out of power roughly half way down his chest. Bowing his chin to press a kiss to Tony’s scrunched forehead, Bucky resolutely refuses to allow a sob to rip its way out of his throat. Moisture coats his cheeks anyway. 

On some unimportant fall day in the early 1980s, Anthony Edward Stark dashes up to the front door of his home at a run, and flings himself into waiting arms, peals of “Daddy!” piercing the air in fits of breathless giggling. 

None of what follows is ever reported to the authorities, but when the dust settles, Tony has a black eye, Bucky has a torn lip, and Howard has a busted nose. 

Somehow, Bucky is the one who takes Tony to the kitchen for ice. He’s the one who presses his hands carefully over sensitive ears when the shouting coming from the hall reaches tirade proportions. 

He’s the one who restrains Tony from chasing Jarvis’ car all the way down the drive. He’s the one who chases it himself, Tony wrapped securely against his left side. 

One unordinary day in October of Bucky’s third year of being Bucky again, his godson calls him daddy, and his world shatters anew. 

Bucky will always consider firing Edwin Jarvis to be the most idiotic thing Howard’s ever done, project Manhattan not-withstanding. 

This judgement is in no way weakened by the fact that it takes them longer to find Jarvis than it does to find Steve. 

\--

The Cold War heats up again in the 1980s, but at the start of the decade, Détente was still in full force, and being friendly with the Soviets was practically a slogan for good American Patriotism among the higher-ups. 

Howard Stark has been called many things, but a stupid businessman was never one of them, so when his government approaches him about postponing his latest trip to the artic to make a secret egress into Russia instead, he understandably tells them to go fuck themselves. Politely. Repeatedly. 

Then someone has the brilliant idea to call Margaret Carter. 

Howard crosses into Russia in the spring of 1983, leaving behind a heavily pregnant young wife and a multi-million dollar weapons company. 

He comes back seven months later to a newly born son and a just edged into the billions weapons company. He brings along a souvenir. 

Howard will not find Steve Rogers in his own lifetime, but finding Bucky Barnes will always be a rather good consolation prize. 

\--

Bucky’s never been particularly sure what he thought of Howard Stark the first time he met him. That memory never quite comes back entirely intact, the details are there but the emotions never truly follow. 

He’s never sure if he even liked him or not. He’s even less sure if he ever considered him a friend. 

He thinks he does now, but he’s only ever really had one friend, and Howard is a far cry from Steve that much he does remember. 

Except, they’re standing outside a really large mansion, everything Bucky owns in the entire world either trapped under an frozen ocean somewhere or slung over his metal shoulder in a grimy duffle bag, and Howard is chipperly introducing him to his butler. 

“Bucky, this is Edwin Jarvis. Jarvis, this is an old friend of mine, James Buchanan Barnes.”

Jarvis’ hand is as smooth and gentle as his curt, “call me Jarvis sir”, is stiff and formal.

And Bucky doesn’t really have time to ponder the meaning of either appellation he’s just been given because the front door is swinging open and suddenly Jarvis’ attitude makes a whole lot of sense. 

“Cool arm, is this my present Papa?!” A whirlwhind of motion attaches itself to his metal wrist before Bucky even has time to register the size and identity of the miniscule toddler unsteadily swinging from his prosthetic arm. 

The tightening around Howard’s eyes at the word “Papa” only last for a second, but Bucky still registers the fact that the look is reserved solely for his son, and for the first time since he woke up remotely cognizant of the fact he’s even a person at all, Bucky pauses to wonder if being Howard Stark’s friend is really all it’s cracked up to be. 

\--

Bucky remembers his father in fits and starts, flashes of shouting and pain intermingled with moments of tenderness and baseball. 

Howard is the one who comforts him through his first flashback, a raised finger gesticulating in the wrong direction in the low evening light of the hospital’s secure courtyard. The man reeks of just enough scotch to cause Bucky to vomit all over his shoes. 

Howard never drinks around Bucky after that, but he never stops drinking either. Which Bucky is fine with, right up until he’s not. 

Charging Howard Stark with child abuse would be virtually impossible even in the twenty-first century, and Bucky knows he hasn’t a hope in hell all the way back in 1985. 

Watching the taillights of Jarvis’ convertible disappear around the curve of California coastline, small fists beating a tattooed rhythm against his aching ribs, Bucky finally remembers that his father was something people these days like to call an alcoholic. 

In his day, they just called them mean fucking drunks. God he misses the 40s. 

\--

“What’s his favourite colour?” 

“Hot rod red.” The answer is out faster than thinking would have made possible. Its instinct really, something that comes with being the parent of a pre-schooler, albeit one that reads university textbooks right along with Doctor Suess. 

Bucky never asked Howard why he fired Jarvis instead of simply getting rid of Bucky after the infamous Daddy incident. He doesn’t speak to the man at all for over a year, but somehow, sometime around Tony’s fifth birthday, Howard slips into the kitchen without Bucky even knowing he was in the house. 

He watches Bucky carefully butter a cake pan for nearly a whole minute before he comes out with that rather non-sequiturial question. 

Howard stares at the perfectly smoothed layer of floury butter for another minute before momentarily flicking brown eyes that look nothing so much as old up to meet Bucky’s blue ones. Old, and stone cold sober for the first time that Bucky can remember in this decade. 

“That’s why.” Which makes no sense, because Jarvis knew Tony’s favourite colour long before Bucky did, but he doesn’t yell that at Howard’s retreating back, no matter how much he wants to.

Because Tony’s never stopped calling Bucky Daddy, and Howard’s never said a word against it. 

Bucky doesn’t remember whether he was friends with Howard Stark. Doesn’t remember it they even ever liked each other. 

But he does remember one thing. They both loved Steve. 

And despite all the evidence to the contrary, he knows they both love Tony.

And for all that he feels more alone here in this Cali Mansion than he ever did in the wilds of Siberia, Bucky wonders if maybe that will be enough in the end after all.


End file.
